Hamburg Gay Bars & Clubs

Exclusive misterb&b data about gay bars in Hamburg for 2026

Gay Bars in St. Georg - Hamburg's Gayborhood

When I want to start a Hamburg night with a beer among locals, I always head to M&V Bar. It has been on Lange Reihe since 1953 and it shows - in the best possible way. The bar is a Hamburg institution with draft Astra beer, a friendly mixed crowd, and a warmth that comes from over seventy years of being the neighborhood's living room. On weekends it gets packed early, so arrive by 9pm if you want a table. The one I always come back to for a more intimate start is Extratour, a few minutes away in the same street. With over 30 years of gay history and a rustic interior full of wooden decor, it has a cozy, slightly older-crowd energy that I find genuinely relaxing before the night escalates. It also does excellent homemade cakes and quality burgers - unusual for a gay bar, and very welcome. Further along, Bellini Bar in a basement on Lange Reihe is Italian-styled, friendly, smoker-friendly, and good for an early drink in a relaxed setting. Toom Peerstall is Hamburg's oldest gay bar, dating to 1919, originally a tattoo studio and horse stable - the name means "at the horse stable" in Low German. I have sat at that bar many times thinking about all the Hamburg gay history it has absorbed. Pick Up Bar, also in St. Georg near the main station, is unpretentious and welcoming to a diverse crowd - artists, businesspeople, tourists - and stays open until the last guest leaves, which in my experience has sometimes been very late indeed.

Gay Bars in St. Pauli - Hamburg's Wild Side

When I want to start the second act of a Hamburg night, I head to WunderBar in St. Pauli. This bar has earned every one of its nicknames - "Hamburg's pink-plush living room" captures it perfectly. The interior is red-and-gold, slightly kitschy, warm and intimate during the week, then transforms into a full dance floor on Fridays and Saturdays when DJs spin until 6am. The drag-led events - Dragqueen Bingo on the fourth Thursday, Stadt Land Gay on the first Wednesday - are genuinely fun and well-attended. It is also the kind of bar where you can arrive alone and leave with five new friends. My preference when I want pure theatrical spectacle is Olivia Jones Bar, owned and run by the legendary German drag icon Olivia Jones. It is dense, colorful, theatrical, and free to enter - with daily drag and cabaret from 8pm, Schlager and German pop on the sound system, and an outdoor terrace in summer. The music policy at Thomaskeller runs harder - dance, trance, and techno in a basement bar with gaming machines and darts, open Thursdays to Sundays and popular with locals who like things underground and unpretentious. MINUS near St. Pauli is a curious, very queer-friendly ice cream parlour turned cocktail bar playing house and techno, with no fixed closing time on weekends. Pulverfass Cabaret, opened in 1973 and relocated to the Reeperbahn in 2001, is one of Europe's oldest running cabaret theaters - shows blend parody, music, comedy, and burlesque in a format that has stood the test of time.

Planning Your Gay Bar Night in Hamburg

The standard Hamburg gay bar night starts in St. Georg around 8-9pm - a beer at M&V Bar or Extratour, something to eat if you need it, then a drift down Lange Reihe to see what is going on. By 11pm the bars are filling up properly. The U-Bahn to St. Pauli takes about ten minutes, and most nights I am at WunderBar by midnight. If the night is going well, it continues until WunderBar closes - or doesn't, on a good Saturday. A note on the signature drinks: Hamburg's local beer is Astra, brewed in St. Pauli and found in every gay bar in the city. The local cocktail is the Hugo - prosecco with elderflower syrup, mint, and lime - which is excellent and appears everywhere from Lange Reihe cafes to club nights. The gay bar scene connects naturally to Hamburg's sauna scene - see the gay saunas in Hamburg for the post-bar options, and the St. Georg gay district page for the full neighborhood context.